


The last letter from home

by Vespertine



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Finale, Post-Series, The blessed dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 11:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7265383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vespertine/pseuds/Vespertine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble.<br/>Missing scene from 3x09 'The Blessed Dark'.</p>
<p>A post-series Ferdinand Lyle receives a letter from an old acquaintance in London; or the part where Sir Lyle discovers a harsh, untenable truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The last letter from home

_**THE LAST LETTER FROM HOME** _

 

“Letter for you.”

 

The short man turned and frowned down disapprovingly at the balding, tanned head of his manservant, Hafez. His blue eyes squinted and his lips pressed together in a flat line of displeasure.

 

Hafez stared back, blinking myopically.

Ferdinand sniffed haughtily. “Letter for you, _Sir_.”

Hafez looked at the prissy man whom he served, nonplussed by any shortcoming on his own part. He waved a  vague hand at the silver tray he carried, with the letter in question sitting starched and innocent.

Ferdinand clicked his tongue, and utterly undone with patience, snatched the letter from the tray and walked turned his back, walking towards his desk. He picked up a glass of claret on the way and sipped delicately, as his housecoat flared behind him a bit as he glided across the room, lost in thought.

He turned it over and saw the sender’s address. He stopped short of a few feet from his desk and looked down at the letter which he ne now held more carefully in his pudgy hand, turning it over and over.

He should feel all dizzying possibilities of pleasure as he looked at the neat slashes of Hartdegen’s utterly masculine calligraphy; but instead a cold feeling settled into his bones. He shifted his gaze to his other hand. The claret. Ferdinand stopped altogether and refilled the decanter, this time nearly to the brim.

Throughout the house, somewhere below the upper floor, chiming little bells tinkled nonsensical tunes. He really should take down all of the numerous facetious little chimes hanging  up all around the shaded courtyard, Ferdinand thought absent-mindedly.

 

The letter opener beckoned his hand. He ignored it and broke the seal with his pudgy fingers.

 

His hands were not shaking. They were not.

There was no sweat on his brow.

His frame and stance were upright and firm.

The rather dashing peppery colour that flushed his delicate pale skin a most becoming red … didn’t fade away to reveal the paleness again.

 

_My truest friend._

 

Ferdinand sickened and  swayed on his feet, breathing heavily, and no, it wasn’t the claret, or the traipse up the narrow steps, it was NOT.

He read the first line. Then the second. Then the first again, and the second and again, back and forth in a dizzying cycle that made his stomach churn and his prominent headache, ache even more fiercely.

 

His vision became blurry -  and why would that be?

Tears?

He was – he was crying, but goodness gracious, why would he do that?

 

Somewhere outside, the market vendors hawked their wares as if they were greeting childhood friends, which was saying something, seeing how crowded the large square was.

Ferdinand was unaware he’d brought up a hand to smear across his cheeks, until his fingers came away wet, and he looked at them in confusion.

 

His face was tear-streaked.

For a moment, he could not comprehend why his heart seemed to be splitting  open inside his chest and thought he was being rendered apart by one of Evelyn Poole’s horrific knives.

 

But the letter, sitting so harmless in the palm of his hands.

_My truest friend._

_My shatteringly beautiful creature._

Ferdinand registered that someone made strangled sobbing noises, but couldn’t discern who this pathetic wounded animal could be, and why on earth it had wondered into his private study.

 

Everything was all sorts of bewildering.

 

Then he was brought up short as he looked at her name, and to him it looked so stark on the pages of the letter, it jolted him out of fugue.

Hafez was still standing were he left him, looking at Ferdinand as though he’d finally managed to succumb to hitherto un-paralleled depths of madness.

Ferdinand’s face was a terrible mess, his eyes bulging. “Get out!”

 

The stumpy man hurried away out of the study, leaving Ferdinand to sink onto the plush carpet at his feet, clutching the letter and whimpering brokenly.

 

When he’d finished reading and re-reading the letter, as if deciphering one of his beloved hieroglyphic riddles, in the search of some hidden passage or gem … when he’d comprehended that his life from this moment on would never be the same – then he looked for the special dagger he kept tucked away inside a drawer.

 

The crumpled letter in his hand he slowly placed on the smooth surface of the dark wooden desk, smoothing it out. His fingertips skimmed gently over the paper, fingering, tracing the letters that made up her name.

 

The dagger was heavy in his hand – truly, it was such a slight thing, all gilt and gleaming blade. Not something you took to a fight, for certain.

 

He took the blade and brought it to the lapel of his jacket, foregoing the silk housecoat, intoning the prayer of his people, knowing that no one was around to witness this.

 

Ferdinand saw her before him, clear as day, white and gentle smile, dark midnight tresses framing a bohemian face made to be painted, green eyes of the most stunning shade of jade.

His breath hitched, fingers trembling as they reached their target. Then they slashed at his chest, and the dagger cut, and cut, until the black lapel cloth parted from the rest of his jacket forever.

On the left side, there was no lapel anymore. On the right, the lapel lay untouched.

 

Such sartorial disaster was unheard of for a man with his fashionable standards.

But after all, he’d be going nowhere tonight.

 

And he was mourning the closest thing he had ever come to calling his own child.

 

Ferdinand couldn’t be sure, but for a second he was almost sure he heard singing, as a shroud settled over his heart under the cut-off remains of his jacket. Irksome thing, he’d never liked it anyway. And he saw her dancing, of all things. He realized in that moment that he’d never even get to see her dance.

And for the rest of the life that was given to him, Ferdinand Lyle would light a candle on this day and keep it burning all day long and, paradoxically, place it next to a bouquet of white calla lilies he insisted on placing next to his beloved curio cabinet inside his study – they’d always been her favourite, after all – and allow himself to think of that woman who had so warmed and seized up his heart in old London, and her gentle smile and her quiet grace.

 

And if he briefly woke up on such a day, every year, thinking he heard singing, he didn’t try to puzzle it out, and just accepted it.

* * *

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> The act described in this fic seems odd to those who are not of the Faith; when a Jewish person receives news of the death of a loved one, one of the first acts described by tradition is to render their clothing, such as cutting away the lapel of a jacket.  
> The strategic spot of the rendering, on the left side of the chest and over the heart symbolises the grief of a parent for a lost child.
> 
> Also, to remember 'the blessed dead', one must light a candle every year on the day they passed away and leave it burning for 24 hours. Placing flowers or indeed using them to remember the departed one, is not part of Jewish tradition, but then this is the way I interpret Lyle's way of doing things, which is certainly singular and in keeping with him as a character.  
> No offence, if these facts are incorrect in any way, is intended.


End file.
